The Treeline by Ben Rawlence

 

I liked the idea of this book and the mixture of anthropology, science, and travelogue did make it readable and fun. However, this book strikes me as a good example of why many people dislike conversations about climate change and global warming.

The author wants to make people feel guilty while being vulnerable himself to criticisms of hypocrisy. The author asks, “How did it ever come to pass that we would forget the names of thee living things that manufactured oxygen, purified the air and water?” (266). Elsewhere he describes the sound of a melting glacier in Greenland as “the sound of guilt” (254). How are readers to respond to these excerpts? Perhaps they will respond by reflecting in sorrow and afflicting their souls in a modern, environmentalist version of Yom Kippur (see Leviticus 16:29). Some readers might just blame the unenlightened or the greedy who fail to vote the right way or make the needed sacrifices. Other readers might lash out: why does this guy who travels all around the Arctic circle in planes and cars get to tell us what to do? He never addresses the issue and offers no justification.

Some of the commentary about indigenous peoples feels unnuanced and lacking in evidence. For example, the author writes that “a First Nations person is never lost in nature,” which feels like rank stereotyping that is unlikely to be true (189). Of two Saami women who work in town, he writes, “They may be good at their jobs, take pride in their work even, but their soul is not in the town. It is out there, in the hills, running free with the reindeer” (67). The author paternalistically insinuates that those with the “winged blood of the nomad” (i.e., members of certain indigenous groups) would be better off eschewing certain jobs or lifestyles so that they can live traditionally (51).

Environmentalism (or to be more specific, limiting Climate Change) has a major PR/marketing problem, and this book is a good example why.